CAIRO: Calm returned Wednesday to the Meet Bashar village in Sharqiya following police and army intervention, after a group of villagers attempted to burn down a church where they believed a Christian convert to Islam was being held against her will. MP Marianne Kamal filed an urgent request in parliament to investigate the case and prosecute the culprits. A rumor circulated Monday evening that a 15-year-old girl had converted to Islam, but was forced to convert back to Christianity, is believed to have stoked sectarian tension in the village. Sources close to the girl's family said her Coptic father had converted to Islam five years ago. He divorced his Christian wife and married a Muslim. The girl, identified as Rania Khalil Ibrahim, had spent the last three months with her father when she decided to leave days ago, the sources said. Rumors claimed that when she converted to Islam to marry a Muslim, she was abducted by the church, which led Muslim villagers to surround the church and set it on fire. Other Muslim villagers tried to protect the church and from the attackers, who wanted to return the girl to her father. However, a delegation of villagers discovered that Ibrahim had fled to Cairo. Calm was restored when it was confirmed that she was not being held in the church. Ramy Kamal, member of the Maspero Youth Union, said that legally as a minor, Ibrahim must go back to live with her Christian mother.
